Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
It’s a flat-out lie that being unable to handle every single thing entirely on your own means you’re weak or a failure. But all too many of us have believed that lie.
A hill I will die on is that if you use the term “toxic masculinity” as a synonym for misogyny, you’re doing it wrong. Of course, there are often misogynistic results to toxic masculinity (a construction worker wolf whistling at female passerby to keep his co workers from questioning his masculinity, for example), but that doesn’t make them the same thing
[Image description: Text from a script that reads ‘With that, Sisko turns and walks out. Bashir stares after him with a leaden feeling his stomach. After a beat, he turns and hammers a fist into the cell wall.]
turns into this:
[Image description: A gif of a clip from the show. It shows a containment cell on Deep Space Nine, the force field activated. Julian Bashir stands despondently in the cell, leaning against the back wall. He slides down the wall to sit on the ground and brings his hands to his head.]
and what that says about Bashir’s response to the situation and his mindset and feeling of anger (or lack thereof) and how Alexander Siddig (and/or the episode’s director) interpreted that.
I might try and put some of those thoughts into words later, but at this moment my brain is not cooperating.
something something the show really wanted Julian to be aggressive and a weird flavor of toxic masculinity a lot of the time and Sid took all of that and managed to subvert it or just refused to play it and turned Julian’s anger into something painful and human instead of toxic and violent
something like that
(Also Julian does this sad wall slide move more than once in the show and I think there’s something to interpret there too but I’m too sleeby)
it’s really interesting how often the writers tried to get julian to be toxically masculine, and how sid was like “lmao no! that ain’t him!”
one of the reasons i think julian is such a compelling character is that he has all of this potential to be a very angry and violent person. he has childhood trauma to the tits, many people don’t like him and find him unpleasant, he deals with a lot of hate (internalized hate included) for being genetically engineered, and he’s fighting at a capacity he never wanted to fight at, in a war he never wanted to be a part of.
he never lets the pain that he feels manifest in a violent way.
even around the end of the series, when he’s withdrawn and feeling depressed, he’s still a very gentle person. i think this is one of the many reasons trek’s target audience doesn’t like julian. the average cishet white male’s toxic masculinity isn’t validated by him. i think this is also one if the reasons queer people connect with him. we know that masculinity isn’t aggression and violence, that it is gentleness and love.
Men like to think they’re individuals with their own independent thoughts but turns out they’re mindless drones constantly worried about social standing and optics.
Ironically, although men are often considered to be less sensitive
than women, they seem to be particularly sensitive when it comes to
perceptions of their gender identity. In fact, a previous study
suggests that men find it to be more difficult than women to choose
between masculine and feminine versions of everyday food and household
items and will usually change their preferences to be more manly when
allowed time to think about their decisions. Something as simple as
holding a purse, ordering a colorful drink, or talking in a high voice
can lead to social harm, so men tend to keep a sharp eye out for any of
these potential snares.
So what can pro-environmental marketers do to buffer against the
threat posed to men by the green-feminine stereotype? First,
eco-friendly marketing messages and materials can be designed to affirm
men’s masculinity and give them the confidence to overcome their fear of
being judged as feminine when engaging in green behaviors. For
example, in one experiment, men who received feedback affirming their
masculinity were more interested in purchasing an eco-friendly version
of a cleaning product. Men who feel secure in their manhood are more
comfortable going green.
Second, green products and organizations can be marketed as more
“Men”-vironmentally-friendly, with more masculine fonts, colors, words,
and images used in the branding. To illustrate, men in one experiment
were more likely to donate to a green non-profit with a masculine logo
(black and dark blue colors featuring a howling wolf, with the name
“Wilderness Rangers” in a bold font) than one with a traditional logo
(green and light tan colors featuring a tree, with the name “Friends of
Nature” in a frilly font). And in a field study conducted at a BMW
dealership in China, male customers were more interested in a hybrid
vehicle after viewing a print ad featuring a masculine term in the
model’s description than when viewing the traditional print ad.
Together, these findings highlight how the green-feminine stereotype
inhibits men from taking eco-friendly actions, and suggest that
masculine affirmation and masculine branding may be effective in
narrowing the gender gap in environmentalism. Make the man feel manly,
and he’s more likely to go green.
Sorry to reblog from the source, but I thought the chain of comments was rather unnecessary. All that needs to be said is that this documentary examines gender inequality and how patriarchy contributes negatively to our society.
This is a feminist issue.
And anyone on Tumblr who’s too close-minded to recognize it as such due to a nonsensical blanketed hatred of men’s issues need to re-evaluate their motives.
THESE ARE REAL AND HORRIBLE MALE ISSUES CAUSED BY THE PATRIARCHY. IF YOURE FEMINIST, THESE SHOULD ANGER YOU. IF YOU’RE NOT, HERES ANOTHER REASON TO SUPPORT THE MOVEMENT.
Straight men who infantilize women’s friendships have no fucking survival instinct. Like my uncle is always making fun of and rolling his eyes at my aunt’s friend lunches and telephone dates with her lady friends, teasing her like she’s a gossipy teenage girl in high school drama. And my aunt just laughs about it but I know for a fact that if it wasn’t for her best friend K, she would have probably set him on fire by now.
Like straight men are capable of maybe a quarter of the indepth emotional labor and support women do for each other. Like men can literally have one friend named Bob that they go fishing with once a year and still be content for life. Then they think it’s cute and girlish that their wives have these long term, integrated, emotionally intense relationships with women but like…LOL, it’s not because men don’t need those kinds of relationships, it’s just that they get it all from their wives while offering peanuts in return. PEANUTS.
Like if your woman is on the phone for 2 hours with her friend and you think that’s childish of her, just know that she spent half of that time getting the support that you should be giving her (but are incapable of) and the rest lamenting what a giant fucking baby manchild you are.
This is how homophobia and misogyny hurts men: it makes these kinds of in-depth, deeply emotionally invested friendships a feminine thing to do, and therefore unmanly (and un-straight) for men to do. Men are brought up to shy away from cultivating these kinds of deep and platonic friendships with other men. Because, you know, if you talk to your male friends all the time and hang out with them and cry in front of them and hug all the time and lean on each other (emotionally and physically) when you need support, it makes you gay and womanly. Which is, apparently, the worst thing you can be.
I’ve read articles and personal stories about and by men, talking about experiences they’ve had that have shown them how painfully out of touch they are with their own emotions and their own ability to open up and connect with people, including themselves.
I worry about men a lot. I worry about the number of men who find themselves incapable of providing emotional support for their friends, their significant others, and themselves, all because of how they’ve been raised to bury and ignore their more vulnerable emotions and tactile tendencies because they’ve been taught that this kind of closeness has to be stamped out at all costs.
!!!!! So important.
So so so important
Studies have shown that this sort of emotional shallowness is a leading factor in why men are more likely to be violent, to drown their sorrows in drug and alcohol abuse, and to successfully commit suicide.
They throw all their eggs in one basket with a significant other, or at times a parent, and when problems arise in that relationship, because they have no other relationships to speak of, they quickly turn to destruction.
This is why I often give out advice that people need to expand on their relationships. You literally CAN’T have it all hinge on a single person, it is a horrific idea and it will destroy you and the things and people you love. You HAVE to have relationships with other people.
Anyone with any mental health issue can tell you that the inability to talk it out, the lack of having someone to turn to, makes things go careening downhill, faster than we can catch them back.
Somehow this is considered an acceptable way of being for men, and their lashing out is “just how men are”. It’s more masculine to shoot yourself than to take medication. It’s more masculine to beat your partners than to have a conversation with them. It’s more masculine to bottle everything up until it erupts and people die, than it is to simply ask for help.
And people want to blame women and feminism for it, for “making men afraid”, or simply try to list the likelihood of surviving suicide and avoiding drug abuse as “female privilege” or something that is a nature-given trick of “biological sex”, rather than address the very serious issue of toxic masculinity and extreme, self-destructive hatred of being perceived as anything like women.
women are being given standards by memes. we need to become incredibly boring and hostile to women. this will make them fuck us
You’re being… just a bit uncharitable here.
The problem here is bigger than “random guy on the internet is hilariously misogynistic”, and if we don’t grapple with it, we’re going to get more of this crap.
Toxic masculinity keeps many men from feeling like they can be vulnerable or having deep interpersonal relationships, so they have no outlet for their feelings; therefore, they have no private places where they can talk about being socially awkward and get advice on how to fix it.
These guys- the kind of guys that hang around reddit- are often neurodivergent and/or extremely socially stunted. They are bad at talking to people in general. They are bad at making friends. Some of this is probably their fault for having shitty personalities, but for a lot of these guys, they don’t have friends, through no fault of their own.
They crave intimacy. The intimacy of “having people on reddit who vaguely give a damn about your problems and are willing to give you advice” is better than being completely isolated. And sadly, reddit culture tends to exacerbate any shittiness in your personality, which makes you more isolated IRL, and it’s a nasty vicious cycle.
There’s a reason a lot of autistic guys turn to PUA bullshit and Reddit bullshit and assorted other misogynistic crap. Modern feminism has erased most of the social scripts people used to navigate dating and romance. This is, overall, a good thing. A lot of those scripts were skeevy as hell, and rightfully deserve to get chucked in the dumpster. But most autistic people need social scripts to function. Without them, we turn into incoherent messes.
And- I hate to say it, I really really do, but most of the norms that replaced them are vague and nebulous as fuck. ‘Hanging out’ instead of formal dating, for example, or having hookups until you decide you want to see each other again. There are more resources that tell you how to deal with someone saying ‘no’ than saying ‘yes’- and frankly if you don’t have very good social skills trying to get someone to verbally say ‘yes we can do the horizontal naked dance’ can come off as weird and pedantic and creepy rather than sexy.
Most resources aimed specifically at teaching neurodivergent guys these skills are condescending as fuck, because most resources aimed at neurodivergent people are condescending as fuck, and if you’re a grown-ass adult you will probably avoid these like the plague.
And most ‘feminist’ resources for dating advice are… er. Well. There is a heavy undercurrent of “if you cannot talk to women without creeping them out, you should not be talking to women”. Which is usually decent advice, if you can’t talk to people without squicking them then it’s probably better for both of you to avoid each other.
Except… a lot of neurodivergent people either do squick people out, or live with the constant fear that they’re creeping people out because of horrible “social skills” training in their youth. So this advice is… not good. At best, it keeps neurodivergent people from having any kind of romantic life; at worst, it keeps neurodivergent women from having any kind of romantic life, and pushes neurodivergent men towards the bullshit of our chode-like friend above.
Because he is a chode, and this is not okay behaviour. I am not apologising for him at all; he deserves to get the smackdown and get it hard. But- I look at this guy, and I smell autism. Autism and desperation to have a place where he can learn these skills without people making fun of him.
He’s begging for a space where he can learn this stuff, and he doesn’t feel safe doing it around women because women have made fun of him for not knowing this stuff in the past. Ironically enough- he wants a safe space. That’s not actually wrong. That is not a bad thing to want. But because he has problems with intimacy, and r/adviceanimals is the only place he’s been able to find anyone willing to help, well… we get this bull.
So like- this is a problem, this is a problem feminism has partly caused, and it is a problem we’ve got to deal with. Unfortunately, the guys who need this help most are the guys who have completely rejected feminism because of snarky condescending neurotypical feminism, so I’m not sure how much we as a community can do.
But admitting that there’s no good dating advice for ND men out there, and that making fun of ND people who need help is mean- well, that would be a start.
Another point to this is that, as an autistic person - even one who’s an fairly self-aware adult - it’s very easy to not feel confident in your own opinions. You get made fun for your views and interests before, so why trust them? Especially if you know you’re not a very static person; it becomes easy to flip-flop on viewpoints and accept what people have to say at face value. (I’m speaking from experience here, and even being self-aware that I do this doesn’t really help that much - I would guess that it can be even worse if you don’t know you’re doing it.)
This isn’t at all a fun trait to have when the people around you have very strong, negative - dare I say radical or bigoted? - viewpoints.
I wouldn’t at all be surprised if some of these ND boys and men go to these sites to try and find a community or some social skills advice, see people saying “The feminists are the cause of all your problems! Women are The Enemy!” and just going “
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Well these people seem to know what they’re talking about, I guess they’re totally right.” This also means that seeing NT feminists making fun of them would just confirm that viewpoint - “these women are mocking me now, I guess they really ARE the enemy.”
Obviously their views are wrong in the extreme, no denying that; and I’m not saying that NT feminists should stop being feminists altogether, or stop challenging these views, or whatever. This is to say nothing of the fact that there are absolutely going to be neurotypical misogynists and bigots who were not “reeled in” this way and who might be active “recruiters” taking advantage of vulnerable people.
But we need to keep in mind that there are people who are vulnerable to being convinced this way - dare I say “radicalised”? Because hating and distrusting women this much is a radical viewpoint, especially if we look at this in terms of these sites teaching bigotries beyond sexism and into the realms of the alt-right/white supremacy. These people are radical bigots and there are vulnerable, misled people among them who may one day see the light and turn away from them.
I feel like a problem is that the only tool people are given to argue their points and views on the internet - and often in offline spaces - is just anger. Anger and shouting and being very wordy (I mean look at this post! it’s way too fucking long already!). When writing lots of complex pseudo-academic paragraphs (with swears and insults sprinkled throughout) is the only way social justice minded people have of trying to convince bigots away, it stops reaching everyone it could possibly reach, because not everyone is going to respond to the same things.
This isn’t the fault of social justice writers - not everyone is going to know alternative ways of doing this. Hell, I don’t know how else to put my points across! But that’s what I mean; there needs to be a way to learn and to try and reach out to people another way, a way that will work. Sometimes there’s no helping these people; but people like the OP, there might be a chance still, and we can’t just blithely ignore that.
I want to use this post to clear something up. When I talk about toxic masculinity it always causes a big backlash, and I’ve noticed it’s mainly because men don’t know what it means. When I say I hate toxic masculinity, I do not mean that I hate that you’re a man or that I hate masculinity.
Toxic masculinity is THIS. Toxic masculinity is when men reinforce the idea that men should suppress and ignore softer displays of emotions that are associated with women. Toxic masculinity is reinforcing the fear of physical affection between men because it makes them appear too feminine or even ‘homosexual’.
It has to stop. Let men cry. Let men hold each other. Stop perceiving things that are ‘feminine’ as weak because outing your emotions is not weakness, it’s strength.
Protip for men: if marriage is a horrifying concept for you and you think it is an evil trap, do not buy a ring and ask a woman to marry you
I’m way over seeing radical feminist bullshit on my dash. This isn’t even social justice or a real issue.
sorry that not marrying someone you dont loathe is radical feminism i guess?
women: don’t propose or get married if u don’t like the thought of marriage
men: what kind of sjw fuckery
the other bit that this implies is:
If you like your wife, act like it. Even around your friends. Be open and honest about liking your wife, liking spending time with her, and not being resentful of the shared work of building a household. Let your buddies know you can’t hang out with them because you’d rather be home with your wife, whom you like, because she is your legit bff, even though you know your buddies are gonna mock you for it.
Stand up to your buddies. Tell them mocking isn’t cool and you don’t want them to do it anymore. Challenge the other men in your life to be better men.
That is what “don’t get married if you think marriage is an evil trap” implies to men who are married. And while it’s all completely reasonable I imagine that it’s scary as fuck when it’s just so much easier to har de har har the little woman’s such a nag, ain’t she, don’t we all hate being married so much? with other men.
In that context, “don’t get married if you think marriage is an evil trap” is kindof a radical statement.
The number of guys I work with who are engaged who started pulling the “uh oh, life over soon, har har” shit that I have completely shut down with a simple “well if you don’t want to get married, then don’t”…*sigh* And they’re just like, hem, haw, welllll if I don’t then she might not stay with meee, which I respond to with “well, sounds like you need to have a pretty serious and honest conversation with your fiancee about your feelings then” and then the *panic!* look…When you remove that easy “hah hah ball-and-chain” narrative, watch the reaction. Some of them (to a female friend) will mumblingly admit that they love their fiancee and are excited to be married. Others…all you get is fear.
That’s the disservice we do men by refusing to teach boys how to explore their emotional needs. It hurts everyone. I watched three male friends walk into marriages I can tell they weren’t ready for and didn’t want, just because it was expected and they had no tools for emotional self-examination. Two of those marriages are (shockingly) in crisis, a couple years later. One has kids involved now. It’s more than a little heartbreaking. The marriages I see that are working? Are the guys with the emotional maturity to talk to their wives and who don’t care if everyone knows they’re in love with them.
SERIOUSLY.
Marriage is a smart move for heterosexual men. Married heterosexual men make more money and enjoy better career progression, better physical health, and better mental health. Married men live longer than unmarried men, and are happier. Married men are promoted above single men or men with unmarried partners, and earn thousands of dollars more.
When married men get cancer or heart attacks, they have a better chance of surviving than unmarried men; when they are sick, they enjoy better care and get better faster. Married men suffer less from social isolation, report higher life satisfaction, and are more resilient to crises. (Of course, “bad” marriages reverse some of these effects - a man in a bad marriage will have more heart problems and be unhappier than an unmarried man.)
And it isn’t just that the “good men” who get married are just naturally “good men” who succeed at life. Studies on identical male twins show that married twins prosper more, and relatively “unsuccessful” men who marry see their fortunes improve. [x][x][x][x][x]
That’s not even counting the daily benefits of being married.
Even in heterosexual marriages with complete gender parity - i.e. husband and wife both do equal amounts of cooking, cleaning and chores - the labor of running a home is still halved, which means more time for leisure or improvement. And most heterosexual households don’t practice gender parity - the women do more work [x]. It’s a real luxury to have someone cook your meals and run the household for you, which usually takes about 2.5 hours of extra work every day - so married men often have more time in their days.
Here’s the sad part. Marriage is known to make heterosexual women WORSE off than unmarried women. [x] [x] This has been discussed since the 1970s. A distinct problem is that married women often suffer a decline in mental health, but this could be confounded because married women are often distressed in heterosexual marriage, leading to more depression and anxiety than they’d normally have [x]. On average, heterosexual marriage is bad for women’s careers. It creates more work for women. Married women do have a better chance of surviving cancer and heart attacks than single women, but the benefit for men is greater. And since nearly 70% of divorces are initiated by women - not relationship breakups, which are equal between genders, but legal marriage breakups - women are the ones who want to get out. [x]
In conclusion, despite pop-culture insistence that women can’t wait to drag men to the altar so that they can Enslave Them For Life, men get a lot of benefits from marrying women. And women don’t benefit very much at all.
So why bother with all this performative, dramatic nonsense about marriage being bad and scary for men? Why pretend it’s “funny” for men to act like marriage is terrible, and that they hate their wives? To someone in possession of the facts, this Extremely Witty Banter is just going to make them laugh… at YOU.
ThinkProgress reports that between 2009 and 2012, 40 percent of mass shootings started with a shooter targeting his girlfriend, wife or ex-wife. Last year alone, nearly a third of mass shooting deaths were related in some way to domestic violence.
